Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Alliances Fund/Wikidata and the Linked Open Data Ecosystem for the Performing Arts/Midpoint Report
Report Status: Accepted
Due date: 2022-10-03T00:00:00Z
Funding program: Wikimedia Alliances Fund
Report type: Midterm
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General information[edit]
This form is for organizations receiving Wikimedia Community Funds (General Support) or Wikimedia Alliances Funds to report on their mid-term learning and results. See the Wikimedia Alliances Fund application if you want to review the initial proposal.
- Name of Organization: Canadian Arts Presenting Association
- Title of Proposal: Wikidata and the Linked Open Data Ecosystem for the Performing Arts
- Amount awarded: 27672.96 USD, 34800 CAD
- Amount spent: 22590 CAD
Part 1 Understanding your work[edit]
1. Briefly describe how your strategies and activities proposed were implemented and if any changes to what was proposed are worth highlighting?
- We proceeded with the proposed strategies and activities as intended. We faced a few labour availability issues that have caused delays with certain batch uploads and data enrichment activities, but we have since procured services from additional service providers and we have redistributed the work load among our different team members. We are well on our way to achieve the objectives of this proposal.
2. Were there any strategies or approaches that you feel are being effective in achieving your goals?
- The Cultural venues datathon (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Cultural_venues/Datathon), a one-week edit-a-thon, was a successful experimentation. Six industry associations (in addition to CAPACOA) partnered with the event and promoted it with their members. In spite of this considerable promotion effort, we had fewer total participants than anticipated (58 rather than the anticipated 140 participants). This being said, those participants were very active. The outreach dashboard (https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/CAPACOA,_Lacogency/Datathon_(25_avril_au_2_mai)/home) displays how much effort went into improving the quality and depth of data about cultural venues in Wikidata (note that these figures a skewed by a few super editors who contributed to other types of items). We also noted ongoing contributions to cultural venues well after the datathon, often at the initiative of nfp associations or government organizations who were unable to contribute at the moment of the datathon, but who realized the importance of undertaking this work. As a result of these efforts, the number of items describing performing arts buildings and performance halls in Canada has increased from 276 to 508 since March.
One particular aspect of the datathon that yielded unanticipated outcomes was the supplementary sessions. These themed discussions brought together a small but very engaged number of Wikidatians who cared about modelling and data quality matters. The session on "How to disentangle a Wikidata item describing both a building and an organization" attracted a group of museum stakeholders who were inspired to take on similar work in their sector.
We also successfully launched a proof of concept for the reuse of open data in a member directory (https://capacoa.ca/en/2022/07/live-directory-crossroads-open-data/). Using a library of shortcodes, the WordPress plugin displays data from Wikidata and other sources on member profile pages.
3. What challenges or obstacles have you encountered so far?
- We encountered the following challenges:
- organizational capacity among data donors;
- language barriers;
- challenges with aggregating metrics.
We also encountered capacity challenges among data donors. Here are excerpts of an upcoming blog post by team member Bridget MacIntosh in which she shares her lessons learned: "A significant challenge was the lack of staffing resources available to collaborate on opening membership data and secure buy-in from membership, while also maintaining a consistent liaison with the LDFI to facilitate data uploads. ... Data quality and exhaustivity were also challenges." (draft post available at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sqK5YJ64S8d0ftaed3usbE3gBJBLWbNAa7LHVIZ7uyc/edit?usp=sharing)
In the past, language barriers have prevented French-speaking colleagues from participating in our LODEPA Meetups. Starting in September, we offered English-French interpretation. This made it possible for three new participants to join the working group. Since the beginning of the project, we've had 21 unique participants in these Meetups.
Finally, we continue to find it challenging to gather metrics highlighting the impact of our work. We have multiple team members working on different data catalogs and sometimes performing multiple uploads for the same catalog. This makes it nearly impossible to aggregate metrics on new items created and upload sizes. In order to work around this problem, we developed a widget that displays the total number of items edited for each catalog: https://culturecreates.github.io/artsdata-widget/#/
4. Please describe how different communities are participating and being informed about your work.
- Our work with data donors (membership-based organizations) is entirely dependent on direct outreach and one-on-one guidance. Over the last 12 months, we met no less than 26 membership-based organizations and other potential data donors. Of these 7 have completed a batch upload and 3 more are expected to undertake the process in the coming months. Key success factors included:
- Patience and timeliness: The timeline was never imposed but defined by the organization itself, according to their own annual schedule of activities.
- Guidance and support: In order to overcome organizational capacity issues, we provided a lot of guidance including help with writing consent policies and communications content.
Here’s a testimony from Aurélie Lauret on Regroupement québécois de la danse : “The RQD has embarked on the “Linked Digital Initiative" project with enthusiasm! By participating in the uploading of the data of the members of the RQD directory in Wikidata, the Regroupement québécois de la danse (RQD) believes in the constitution of a knowledge graph for the performing arts and more specifically for dance. We believe in the theory of small steps! We strongly believe that it will contribute to increase the visibility of dance, and more specifically of our members, on the web.”
Time for dialogue was particularly important in our work with the Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance. This partnership began well before this project grant and is now yielding beautiful outcomes, as highlighted in this blog post: https://linkeddigitalfuture.ca/2022/09/30/indigenous-artists-linked-data/
Finally, even if this is out of the scope of the project grant, we continue to seize every opportunity to promote Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons at industry conferences. Although we cannot easily track the impact of these activities over time, we receive a lot of positive feedback from participants at these events (and this occasionally leads to further demands for Wikidata workshops).
5. Please share reflections on how your efforts are helping to engage participants and/or build content, particularly for underrepresented groups.
- Our strategy of collaborating with membership-based organizations as data donors has truly lowered barriers for participation from artists and arts organizations in Wikidata, while also allowing for deeper levels of engagement. Artists and cultural workers who do not wish to engage with Wikidata or who don't have enough time for it are only required to read the information shared by their association of union and to give their consent for uploading their information to Wikidata. Artists and cultural workers who do wish to engage with Wikidata have the opportunity to participate in data enrichment activities, during which they are provided step-by-step guidance to create their user account and to start adding statements to Wikidata.
We have worked with communities in both of Canada's official languages.
We will be delivering a data enrichment activity for Indigenous artists on November 10th.
We are also in the process of validating with Indigenous-led organizations if and how they would like their organization and their artistic director represented in Wikidata.
Our efforts to promote engagement with Wikimedia Commons have had very little impact so far. We still have the intention of developing written guidance on consent and appropriate credit for photos of live performances.
6. In your application, you outlined your learning priorities. What have you learned so far about these areas during this period?
- Through the Cultural Venues Datathon, we successfully tested our assumption that themed activities organized around a clear and compelling rallying goal can generate deeper engagement than generic Wikidata workshops. We will have the opportunity to further test this assumption during data enrichment activities scheduled for November.
In our grant application, we wanted to find out "whether Wikidata-powered applications are truly perceived as benefits by the performing arts community."
CAPACOA launched the LIVE Performing Arts Directory in July (https://linkeddigitalfuture.ca/2022/07/21/live-directory-crossroads-open-data/) as a proof-of-concept for open data reuse in the context of an online directory. Did we manage to “wow” our members and partners with this new tool? Here’s what Chandel Gambles, from CAPACOA, had to say: “While I think that through this tool, we've definitely further grown our offerings in relation to open data, I don't think the concepts of Open Data or the Live Directory are widely well recognized enough yet to independently clarify how it all connects. ... Through our efforts, folks know that something big is happening - but only about 10-15% have engaged enough to be able to independently look at these initiatives and understand how ‘wow’ it is. So I would say that the members I've spoken with definitely know OF open data's importance. … Those who we've walked through describing this with - like networks - do sound pleased.”
7. What are the next steps and opportunities you’ll be focusing on for the second half of your work?
- - The next iteration of the LIVE Performing Arts Directory will integrate Commons photos and venue data from Wikidata (we’ll “connect the dots” by reusing information populated as part of the Datathon in April).
- We want to focus a bit more on Wikimedia Commons, by developing and sharing performing arts specific guidance.
- We will continue to encourage and to monitor the population of venue items with the intention of achieving >90% completion in Canada.
Part 2: Metrics[edit]
8a. Open and additional metrics data.
| Open Metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | ||
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | ||
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Additional Metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Diversity of participants brought in by grantees | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of people reached through social media publications | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of activities developed | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of volunteer hours | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
8b. Additional core metrics data.
| Core metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | Our activities are meant primarily to engage participants as editors, which are reported below.
Besides our anticipated 220 editors, we anticipate having 15 unique participants at quarterly LODEPA meetups. |
235 | 101 | 43 new participants and 58 returning participants.
The vast majority of our participants have also been editors. This count does not include Wikidata presentations made by team members at industry conferences (7 events, 171 new participants). |
Registration forms. |
| Number of editors | 140 unique editors in datathon
80 unique editors in other editing activities We will track new and returning editors during these activities. |
220 | 86 | Unique editors at the datathon and at the data enrichment clinics for orchestras: 30 new users and 35 returning users.
Unique editors at the Meetups: 21 returning editors Our target is 220. We still have four data enrichment clinics left, but we may fall short of reaching this target. Participants who did not provide their username are not counted. Participation in the regular Wikidata workshop series are not included. |
Usernames collected in registration forms and over the chat during the events.
The above count does not include registrants who attended our events but who never provided a Wikidata username. Full list of data clinic participants: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FrhwroltCBTzWvcLb-UBasZoGbqjGlKmZOq91e-x8QE/edit#gid=116658910 Full list of meetup participants: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FrhwroltCBTzWvcLb-UBasZoGbqjGlKmZOq91e-x8QE/edit#gid=0 |
| Number of organizers | 8 core team members
11 association/union workers involved in components 1 and 2 |
19 | 16 | 7 core team members + 9 participating associations and unions | Administrative records. |
| Wikimedia Project | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikidata | More than 14,000 items loaded to Wikidata (we don’t know yet what proportion will be new vs existing items)
3500 edits to 140 venue items over the course of the datathon (140 editors x 25 edits on average) |
14000 | 10592 | 4710 Wikidata items touched as part of batch uploads.
5870 items edited during the Cultural Venues Datathon. 12 items edited during the data enrichment clinic for orchestras. Our batch upload with the Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance significantly improved the representation of Indigenous artists in Wikidata: 176 IPAA individual members in the dataset. 152 new items created. 24 existing items edited. 11 properties edited/stated (excluding references). |
Upload reports:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ajUxo-_JHx1Vg0YCsDN6-NyG7cjFiJ0CYDvc564lV_o/edit#gid=1846756085 Outreach dashboards: https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/CAPACOA,_Lacogency/Datathon_(25_avril_au_2_mai)/home https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/OC/Data_Enrichment_for_Canadian_Orchestras/home |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
9. Are you having any difficulties collecting data to measure your results?
- As mentioned above, we experience challenges aggregating batch upload metrics from multiple team members. Of the 4710 items touched as part of uploads, we estimate that 3201 (68%) were created items.
We are also finding it difficult to monitor their participants' contributions at our online events. We do collect their usernames and populate them in Outreach Dashboards, but this tool doesn't tell us which ones are new users or whether they continue do contribute beyond the duration of the event.
10. Are you collaborating and sharing learning with Wikimedia affiliates or community members?
- Partially
10a. Please describe how you have already shared them and if you would like to do more sharing, and if so how?
- We have had limited engagement with Wikimedia Canada. Our national Wikimedia affiliate has limited capacity to collaborate with projects such as ours.
This being said, we regularly engage with the Wikidata community over the project chat, the newsletter, and our WikiProjects.
11. Documentation of your work process, story, and impact.
- Below there is a section to upload files, videos, sound files, images (photos and infographics, e.g. communications materials, blog posts, compelling quotes, social media posts, etc.). This can be anything that would be useful to understand and show your learning and results to date (e.g., training material, dashboards, presentations, communications material, training material, etc).
- Below is an additional field to type in link URLs.
- Cultural Venues Datathon Final Report (including link to video and quotes from participants): https://docs.google.com/document/d/11TXuPl0mRVj6-tPnl1pEC4ERn9HZda4iHnp9YQXOj94/edit?usp=sharing
Cultural Venues Datathon wiki page (including training material): https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Cultural_venues/Datathon Data enrichment for orchestras (training material): https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1dtu0MMqyvNUI6BSs7T-_-bbYW6nzrsyX4C2IMkm1jRM/edit?usp=sharing Wikimedia Commons: a discoverability opportunity for the performing arts (blog post): https://linkeddigitalfuture.ca/2022/03/01/wikimedia-commons-a-discoverability-opportunity-for-the-performing-arts/ The LIVE Directory: At the Crossroads of Performing Arts and Open Data (blog post): https://linkeddigitalfuture.ca/2022/07/21/live-directory-crossroads-open-data/ Indigenous Artists Shine Equally on our Stages as in the Constellation of Linked Data (blog post): https://linkeddigitalfuture.ca/2022/09/30/indigenous-artists-linked-data/
Part 3: Financial reporting and compliance[edit]
12. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.
- 22590
13. Local currency type
- CAD
14. Please report the funds received and spending in the currency of your fund.
- Upload Documents, Templates, and Files.
- Provide links to your financial reporting documents.
15. Based on your implementation and learning to date, do you have any plans to make changes to the budget spending?
- Yes
15a. Please provide an explanation on how you hope to adjust this.
- A new data enrichment clinic (Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance) and a batch upload (Associated Designers of Canada) were confirmed since the start of the project. We will be incurring expenses for these activities and we would like to be able to reallocate any unused part of the WMF grant for these activities.
16. We’d love to hear any thoughts you have on how the experience of being a grantee has been so far.
- The support from the Wikimedia Foundation enabled us to scale up the amount of performing arts data in Wikidata at a level and pace we would not have been able to achieve otherwise. We are well on our way to making Wikidata the most complete database of performing arts buildings and halls. Since the beginning of the project the number of such items doubled from 276 to 508. Data quality and depth also increased considerably.